Anne Reed is a staff writer for the American Family Association (AFA). AFA is a fundamentalist Christian ministry started in 1977 by Methodist minister Don Wildmon. Wildmon’s son Tim now runs the operation. In order to write accurate, timely articles, I must monitor the ruminations of the religious-right. I don’t like doing so, but it is a necessary part of my job. Every day, I must wade through hundreds of articles that I consider racist, bigoted, conspiratorial, or bat-shit crazy. Thus, I subscribe to AFA’s newsletter, The Stand.
Anne Reed thinks the government should regulate homosexuality because Michelle Obama is concerned about childhood obesity and has used the power of government to change how children eat at a school. In her mind, gay sex should be regulated just like school lunches. I can see your face now. Huh, there is no connection between these two things? Remember Reed is a fundamentalist. Reason and logic are not her strong suit.
Here’s what she had to say:
…CDCP has also reported a wealth of reliable and disturbing facts about the effects of homosexual behaviors, particularly among males. Gay and bisexual men represent only about two percent of the U.S. population but accounted for three-fourths of all estimated new HIV infections annually from 2008 to 2010. Wow! That is an extreme and unmistakable health risk associated with homosexual behavior.
In 2010, the same year the Let’s Move campaign kicked off, African American men accounted for more than double the number of estimated new infections in other ethnic groups. And young African American gay and bisexual males ages 13 to 24 are especially affected by HIV. But where’s the compassion for these young men? Where’s the determination to bring about necessary lifestyle changes?
And somehow President Obama expresses no concern for those who wish to change that extremely risky behavior. Rather, he wants to model decisions made in California, New Jersey, and DC banning licensed professionals from offering and providing conversion therapy for minors who seek to change their same-sex attractions and behavior.
While gluttony, laziness, and ignorance can certainly lead to a life of disease and early death, so can misguided sexual desires. This is clear. If the Obamas really understand and care about the importance of teaching a child correct behaviors at an early age when it comes to nutrition and exercise, why is the concept inapplicable when it concerns damaging sexual cravings and behaviors?
Have you ever watched a movie scene where one actor withheld a helping hand from another whose grip was slipping from the edge of a tower or building? It goes against everything we know to be right and good. We don’t just let somebody fall into a pit of destruction when it’s within our power to help.
First, let me say that Anne Reed is being disingenuous. As a Christian fundamentalist and a political right-winger, Reed doesn’t want the government regulating anything. Well, execpt the “sins” listed in the Bible, then she wants the government to be a terror to evil and an executor of wrath on those who do evil.
Second, being gay is not a choice. Evidently, Reed thinks a person chooses to be gay just like she chooses a bag of potato chips at the local store.
Third, the students eating lunch are CHILDREN and parents, school boards, and government has a vested interest in making sure children eat a nutritious lunch. How a gay has sex is determined by attraction, preference, and desire. Surely Reed knows that heterosexuals have anal and oral sex too? Those engaging in gay sex are consenting teenagers and adults. They are mature enough to make rational sexual choices. Children, with immature minds, would choose to have a lunch of candy bars, Captain Crunch, and ice cream. For a beverage Pepsi wins over milk every time. Since we know many children aren’t ready to make responsible eating choices, adults make the choice for them. Gays do not need help choosing who to have sex with.
Fourth, yes HIV does affect the gay population far more than it does the heterosexual population, But, it DOES affect the heterosexual population, so using Reed’s illogical logic, should heterosexual sex be regulated or forbidden? After all, it would keep heterosexuals from getting HIV.
According to the CDC, there are about 50,000 new HIV infections each year. One out of every 300 Americans is infected with HIV. Compare this to one out of ten Americans having diabetes. It seems to me that Reed should be writing about the diabetes epidemic that is ravaging the Christian church. Perhaps the government should step in and ban church potlucks and ban churches with bus ministries from giving out candy to riders. Think of the children, Anne!!
Fifth, the overwhelming majority of sexually transmitted diseases are contracted by white, Christian heterosexuals. Again, using Reed’s illogical logic, shouldn’t Christianity and heterosexual sex be strictly regulated or forbidden? We know that Evangelical and conservative Christian churches often given the sexually active horrible advice about sex and birth control. Perhaps Baptist youth groups should be banned because of their promotion of “just say no.” Doesn’t “just say no” encourage sexual irresponsibility, resulting in a loss of virginity, STD’s, and unplanned pregnancies?
It took me all of a few hundred words to strip Anne Reed naked and expose the bigotry and hate that lies behind her beliefs. It’s not about public policy or what is best for children. Reed’s God, in an inspired, inerrant, infallible work of fiction, has decreed that homosexuality and same-sex marriage is an abomination. This same God, in the same book, said that homosexuals should be executed. Of course, he also thought adulterers and fornicators should be executed too. Man, that sure would drastically reduce church attendance numbers, wouldn’t it? Imagine God killing every adulterous, fornicating Baptist. Why, I know some IFB churches that would have to close their doors. Their pulpits would certainly be empty if God got all righteous and killed adulterers and fornicators.
Let me end this post with three comments left on Reed’s article by loving, concerned Christians:
“Thanks Anne Reed for a brave attempt at juxtaposing M. Obama’s “Let’s Move” program with the proliferating spread of HIV among, of all things, gay and bisexual men. Hmm…this data from the CDC obviously cannot be examined critically by anyone in the Obama administration because that would be tantamount to exposing the skeletons in homosexuals’ closets. This administration makes the rules, changes the rules as necessary to reap the greatest amount of political gain, and then shushes anyone who challenges the rules.” (Bruce has one comment: So HIV infections started when the Kenyan-born Muslim atheist socialist Obama took office)
“There is also alarming stats that have recently been released on the “transgendered” community with articles such as this: “High HIV burden identified in transgender women,” Baral S. Lancet Infect Dis. 2013;13:214-222; Correlates of HIV Infection Among Transfemales, San Francisco, 2010: Results From a Respondent-Driven Sampling Study, American Journal of Public Health, August 2013. There are also mental health issues that can be associated with this lifestyle: Anxiety and Depression in Transgender Individuals: The Roles of Transition Status, Loss, Social Support, and Coping, Journal of Consulting & Clinical Psychology, June 2013.” (Bruce has one comment: Transgender individuals have anxiety and depression? Shock. I wonder why? Looking at you AFA)
“God says that He gives the Homosexual who in the heart and mind reject what is good for what is evil over time giving them over to a reprobate mind to not know the difference since they do not care ! And God gives them a just recompense in the flesh ! Perhaps a memo to their flesh to not mind what is bad nor differentiate that which is bad from what is good as they desired mentally they receive physically as well – Auto – Immune Dificiency Syndrome?” (Bruce has one comment: Sounds to me like HIV and homosexuality is God’s fault. After all, isn’t he the one giving them over to a reprobate mind?)
Steven Anderson pastors an Faithful Word Baptist Church, an IFB church in Tempe, Arizona. The Anderson’s have added one more child since this photograph was taken.
Steven Anderson is the pastor of Faithful Word Baptist Church, an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church in Tempe, Arizona. Anderson’s bio states:
Pastor Steven Anderson was born and raised in Sacramento, CA. At age 18, he travelled throughout Germany and Eastern Europe for 3 months serving in local independent Baptist churches, studying foreign languages, and getting experience in the ministry. It was on this trip that he met his future wife, Zsuzsanna, while out soul-winning in the streets of Munich, Bavaria. He eventually lead her to the Lord, and they were married shortly thereafter. They have been married for over 13 years, and God has blessed them with 7 beautiful children.
Pastor Anderson started Faithful Word Baptist Church on December 25, 2005. He holds no college degree but has well over 140 chapters of the Bible memorized word-for-word, including approximately half of the New Testament. Today, most Baptist churches are started by Bible colleges. However, the Bible makes it clear that the church is the pillar and ground of the truth, not a school. Faithful Word Baptist Church is a totally independent Baptist church, and Pastor Anderson was sent out by a totally independent Baptist church to start it the old-fashioned way by knocking doors and winning souls to Christ.
God has blessed Faithful Word Baptist Church tremendously. Thousands have been saved, many have been baptized.
Faithful Word Baptist Church is a congregation of a hundred or so members, thirty of which are children. They meet in a building located at 2741 W Southern Ave, Suite #14, Tempe, Arizona. As you can tell from this Google Earth graphic:
Faithful Word is located at a busy Tempe intersection. Their building is not some Jim Jones-like compound out in the boonies. They are right smack dab in the middle of Tempe, Arizona, a growing community of 168,000 people.
Anderson is well-known for his YouTube Videos. According to the church’s website, these 1,200 videos/mp3 sermons have been downloaded over 8,000,000 times. Anderson has put together a video tour of Faithful Word, and during the video he explains some of the things that are important to the church. As you will be able to see if you watch the nine-minute video, Anderson, is a polite, soft-spoken man. He is a family man who loves Jesus, his wife, children, and Faithful Word Baptist Church.
In the video, Anderson shares the things that make Faithful Word different from other churches. Things like:
They only sing old hymns and spiritual songs
They only use the 1611 version of the King James Bible
They believe in preaching the whole Bible
They believe in preaching hard against sin
They have family-integrated services, no age-segregated classes
They have a nursery and mother’s room that are used to nurse infants and train children to sit in church (the sermon is piped in, and a window allows mothers and children to see the preacher)
They make Bibles, sermon CD’s and videos, available free of charge to anyone who wants them
Faithful Word has a Spanish class for members learning to speak Spanish. Since Arizona has a large Hispanic population, Anderson believes it is important for church members to speak Spanish. By learning Spanish, they are better able to evangelize Hispanics.
According to Anderson, outside of preaching the whole Bible, the most important thing is reaching Arizona with the true gospel. Faithful Word has what Anderson calls a Small Town Soulwinning Map. This map shows all small/rural communities in Arizona, places Anderson has targeted for a blitz-like evangelization effort. Church members spread out all over the small community and knock on every door, witnessing to all who answer.
Anderson also mentioned the church’s effort to evangelize all of Phoenix. According to him, daily church members knock on doors, witnessing to all who answer. Their goal is to knock on the door of every home in Phoenix. Church members go neighborhood by neighborhood, marking off on a map those areas that have been evangelized. According to Anderson, thousands of people have been saved through the efforts of Faithful Word Baptist Church.
While most IFB pastors are pretribulational and premillennial, Anderson and Faithful Word are posttribulational and prewrath rapture. They believe Christians will go through most of tribulation, only to be raptured out just before God’s final judgment and wrath. This belief was made popular in the early 1990s by Marv Rosenthal. The church offers a video they made, produced by Paul Wittenberger, titled After the Tribulation. They recently released another video titled New World Order: Bible Versions. According to Wittenberger’s bio page (link no longer active):
Paul Wittenberger is a filmmaker, artist and activist, was born in Michigan but spent his early childhood in the West African nation of Liberia. After returning to the United States and completing his early education, Paul studied film at Full Sail University. His upbringing in West Africa gives Paul a unique perspective, which he brings to his art.
In early 2010 Paul teamed up with producer G. Edward Griffin to make a film that would bring the issue of geothermal engineering, or “chemtrails,” to the forefront. “What in the World are They Spraying?” opened in of October 2010 to great success and controversy. Paul’s second feature length documentary was released in 2012. “The Great Culling: Our Water” exposes how fluoride in our drinking water is neither safe nor effective. It is, in actuality, a toxic byproduct of the phosphate industry called hydrofluorosilic acid.
After “The Great Culling: Our Water,” Paul teamed up with Steven Anderson to Produce three back to back films, “After the Tribulation,” “The Book of Revelation,” and “New World Order Bible Versions.”
Paul currently resides in the Los Angeles, California, area where he continues to make documentaries and educate people on the New World Order deception.
After thoroughly investigating Steven Anderson and Faithful Word Baptist Church, I have concluded that they are a typical IFB pastor and church. There is nothing in their beliefs that can’t be found in other IFB and Evangelical churches. While their eschatology makes them an outlier, every other belief fits well within the IFB/Evangelical box.
What makes Anderson different is that he is willing to say in public what is said behind the closed doors of IFB/Evangelical churches, colleges, conferences, and preacher meetings. He’s not afraid to let the world know what he thinks and believes. As a result, Anderson and Faithful Word were labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for things Anderson said in a sixty-six-minute sermon titled Why I Hate Barack Obama. Anderson had this to say:
Tonight, I want to preach this sermon. And you have probably never heard a sermon like this before. Actually, you probably have if you have been coming to church here for a while. But you know what? Here is my sermon, why I hate Barack Obama. That’s my sermon tonight, because Barack Obama is coming to town tomorrow morning.
Barack Obama is coming to town. And he is going to be here tomorrow morning. Who knew that he was coming to town? I didn’t know. I just found out recently with his health care and everything like this.
And I’m going to tell you something. I hate Barack Obama. You say, well, you just mean you don’t like what he stands for. No, I hate the person. Oh, you mean you just don’t like his policies. No, I hate him…
…You are going to tell me that I’m supposed to pray for the socialist devil, murderer, infanticide who wants to see young children and he wants to see babies killed through abortion and partial-birth (INAUDIBLE) everything? You are going to tell me I am supposed to pray for God to give him a good lunch tomorrow while he’s in Phoenix, Arizona?
No. I am not going to pray for his good. I am going to pray that he dies and goes to hell…
…What goes around comes around. You love violence. You hate that which is right. You love to harm others. You love to hurt or kill the unborn or the innocent or the righteous. He is saying, God is going to bring that upon your own head, because whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.
Now, turn back to Psalm 58 and let me ask you this question. Why should Barack Obama melt like a snail? Why should Barack Obama die like the untimely birth of a woman? Why should his children be fatherless and his wife a widow, as we read in this passage?
Well, I will tell you why. Because, since Barack Obama thinks it is OK to use a salty solution, right, to abort the unborn, because that’s how abortions are done, my friend, using salt — and I would like to see Barack Obama melt like a snail tonight…
The same God who instituted the death penalty for murders is the same god who instituted the death penalty for rapists and for homosexuals, sodomites and queers! That’s what it was instituted for, okay? That’s God, he hasn’t changed. Oh, God doesn’t feel that way in the New Testament … God never “felt” anything about it, he commanded it and said they should be taken out and killed.
You know why God wanted the sodomites in the Old Testament to be killed? You know why every good king of Israel, the Bible says they got rid of the sodomites in the land? You know, the good kings that came after the bad kings who had allowed the sodomites to infest their land, they had infiltrated … King Asa got the sodomites out of the land, Jehoshaphat exterminated the sodomites that were left from the days of his father, Asa. Why? Because the sodomites are infectious, that’s why. Because they’re not reproducers, that goes without saying, they’re recruiters.
How are they multiplying? Do you not see that they’re multiplying? Are you that blind? Have you noticed that there’s more than there were last year and the year before, and the year before that? How are they multiplying? They’re reproducing right? No, here’s a biology lesson: they’re not reproducers, they’re recruiters! And you know who they’re after? Your children. Remember you dropped off your kids last week? That’s who they’re after. You drop them off at some daycare, you drop them off at some school somewhere, you don’t know where they’re at. I’ll tell you where they’re at: they’re being recruited by the sodomites. They’re being molested by the sodomites. I can tell you so many stories about people that I know being molested and recruited by the sodomites.
They recruit through rape. They recruit through molestation. They recruit through violation. They are infecting our society. They are spreading their disease. It’s not a physical disease, it’s a sin disease, it’s a wicked, filthy sin disease and it’s spreading on a rampage. Can’t you see that it’s spreading on a rampage? I mean, can you not see that? Can you not see that it’s just exploding in growth? Why? Because each sodomite recruits far more than one other sodomite because his whole life is about recruiting other sodomites, his whole life is about violating and hurting people and molesting ’em…
… I’m here to preach the Bible. And I’m sick to death — hey, let me tell you something. Our country is run by faggots. You know who wrote this 700-billion-dollar bailout bill? You know who was the man who was the architect of the bailout? His name is Barney Franks, he is a pedophile, he has been arrested for uh, interacting with boys that are in their teenage years when he’s in his 50s, it’s in the news, he’s been arrested for it. He is a pedophile, he is a homosexual, he has stood up in the floor of the sacred halls of justice and said,’I am gay, I am a sodomite.’
That’s Barney Frank, that’s who just sold our country into fascism. That’s who just sold our corporations to the government. That’s who sold out our country, a faggot! And I’m here to tell you something! I’m not going to stand for it, and let a faggot run the church! It’s bad enough that we’ve got a bunch of faggots running the government!
Here’s a video clip of a sermon preached in November 2014 where Anderson says the Bible gives the cure for AIDS:
Video Clip (link no longer active)
For you who can’t stomach Anderson’s video, his cure for AIDS is quite simple: kill all of them. No need to spend billions of dollars on AIDS research. Just kill everyone who has AIDS, and that will put an end to it. I assume Anderson believes that almost everyone who has AIDS is a homosexual.
Again, I have not read or heard anything from Pastor Steve Anderson and the Faithful Word Baptist Church that I have not heard countless times in IFB/Fundamentalist/Evangelical churches, colleges, conferences, and preacher meetings. Granted, Anderson lacks the smooth-talking, salesman skills of most preachers, but his beliefs can be found preached in thousands of churches. He may use coarse, inflammatory words, but the message is still the same: repent or go to hell. Anderson is no different from culture warriors who think abortion is murder, homosexuality is a sin, and President Obama, atheists, agnostics, humanists, Democrats, liberals, progressives, and socialists are the spawn of Satan.
As I mentioned in a recent post titled Hello Bruce, I’m A Nice Evangelical, no matter how the Evangelical smiles and is kind, decent, and polite, their beliefs are abhorrent. Millions of “nice” people think homosexuals are perverts. Millions of “nice” people think that atheists are child molesters and servants of Satan. Millions of “nice” people think abortion is murder. Millions of “nice” people think their unbelieving neighbors, friends, spouse, children, and grandchildren will go to hell when they die. Millions of “nice” people believe that God will fit unbelievers after they die with a body that can survive torture in a lake of fire for eternity. Millions of “nice” people think the United States is a Christian nation, that prayer and the ten commandments should be allowed in public schools, that the earth is 6,019 years old, that global warming is a hoax, and sex before marriage is a sin.
Knowing what I know about Evangelicals and their beliefs, I have concluded that Pastor Steven Anderson and Faithful Word Baptist Church are not in any way special. They may not play the nice game like downtown First Baptist Church, but their beliefs are similar. As I have stated many times before, strip the façade from people like Fred Phelps and Westboro Baptist Church, Steven Anderson and Faithful Baptist Church, Bob Gray and Longview Baptist Temple, Jack Hyles and First Baptist Church, Peter Ruckman and Bible Baptist Church, Bob Jones University, Pensacola Christian College, Baptist Bible Fellowship, General Association of Regular Baptist Churches (GARBC), Independent Fundamental Churches of America (IFCA), John MacArthur, Al Mohler, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Franklin Graham, many Southern Baptist churches, and a plethora of Evangelical parachurch organizations, and you will find that they all have a shared belief. While they may disagree on orthopraxy, eschatology, soteriology, baptism, etc, the beliefs that bind them are far more than the beliefs that separate them.
While Pastor Steven Anderson is roundly criticized and ridiculed by Christian and non-Christian alike, his video and sermons have been downloaded 8,000,000 times. Even if most of the downloads were by people opposed to Anderson, I suspect that many of the downloads were by Christian preachers and church members who agree with him. Like it or not, the Steve Andersons of the world are many. And it is for this reason those of us who believe in reason, rationalism, skepticism, humanism, and science must continue pushing back against Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism. We dare not ignore preachers like Steven Anderson and Ken Ham. They are like brain cancer that eats away the parts of the brain that help us think and reason. No matter how nice they may be, it is their beliefs that cause untold heartache and damage.
Notes
You can view all of Anderson’s YouTube videos here (link no longer active). You can check out his sermon transcripts here.
You can read Anderson’s wife’s blog here. She lists several like-minded churches, Verity Baptist Church, Sacramento, California, Word of Truth Baptist Church, Prescott, Arizona and Steadfast Baptist Church, Fort Worth, Texas. As you will find out from her blog, Zsuzsanna Anderson has the same beliefs as her husband, a man she thinks is the greatest pastor in the world. You will also find that she is a loving mother who thinks she is doing what’s best for her family.
Faithful Word Baptist Church had a record attendance of 172 last Sunday, April 5, 2015
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.
To understand dinosaurs, we need to look at what the Bible teaches us about Earth’s history. We also need to recognize that the word dinosaur wasn’t invented until 1841, as a word for a particular group of land animals. According to Genesis, God created everything in six, literal, 24-hour days. Land animals were created on Day Six of Creation Week .
Since dinosaurs are land animals (some people think that certain flying and marine reptiles were dinosaurs, but these actually aren’t classified as dinosaurs), they must have been created on Day Six as well. Originally all dinosaurs, like everything else, were created vegetarian . They didn’t begin to eat meat until after Adam and Eve rebelled against God.
The reason we have a number of dinosaurs buried in sedimentary layers is because of the global Flood described in Genesis 6–8. This catastrophic Flood would have ripped up miles of sediment, trapping and burying creatures that weren’t on the Ark as it was re-deposited. These creatures turned into fossils that we dig up today. After the Flood, dinosaurs died out for many of the same reason species die out today: changes in climate, habitat, lack of food, human predation, and so on.
Dinosaurs aren’t a mystery when you start with the history recorded in God’s Word. The Bible perfectly explains dinosaurs. They are just another example of the incredible variety of creatures that God created in the beginning…
Simply put, since God created everything, and the universe is only 6,019 years old, God not only created dinosaurs, they roamed the earth at the same time as Adam and Eve.
For Ham, it’s not about the science. In Ham’s world, the Bible is an inspired, inerrant, infallible book. When it speaks to matters of science, it is absolutely, infallibly correct. No matter what science tell us, no matter what archeology tells us, no matter what geology tells us, no matter what biology tells us, the BIBLE trumps all of them.
Let this be a reminder of why it is a waste of time to talk to, debate, or argue with young earth creationists. Their minds are shut off to anything but their narrow, literalistic interpretation of the Bible. Arguing science with them never works. Until they come to see that the foundation of their system of belief, the Bible, is not what they claim it is, there is no hope for them. Before Jerry Coyne can do his job, Bart Ehrman must do his. Until the Bible is shown to be errant and fallible, their interpretations will remain inerrant and infallible.
Tom Cruise, speaking at the opening of a Scientology church in Madrid.
Is the Church of Scientology a religion? No, the Evangelical indignantly says. They are a cult. Do you know what they believe, Bruce? Why they believe:
75 million years ago there was an intergalactic ruler called Xenu (Zee – Noo) who had a population problem that made China look pathetic. To get round this little hiccup, Xenu enlisted the help of evil psychiatrists to drug a whole shit ton of aliens, freeze them in ice, and then load them onto space planes that looked suspiciously like a common airliner of the 1950’s – the DC-8 Comet (only painted all shiny like and with space rockets)
The aliens got shipped to earth, where they were dropped in and around volcanoes (just stick with it, it gets better), at which point Xenu detonated a crap load of nukes just in case the volcanoes didnt finish the job.
The alien souls, or “Thetans” (Fay-Tans) soon started drifting upwards, but the wise and mighty Xenu had forseen this, and cunningly built electric fences. Cos y’know, electric fences are good at catching souls?
The Thetans were then brainwashed for a considerable period of time before being set loose, where they roamed about all confused and dazed. Eventually they latched on to early mankind, and are now the source of all our confusion.
Surely, even you,Bruce, can see that Scientology is a whacked out, crazy false religion. Not really. Is the central tenets of Scientology any different from the core beliefs of Christianity? The only difference between the two is that one has been around 60+ years and the other has been around 2,000 years.
I’m curious what your take on Scientology is, because the intergalactic story of Xenu does encroach on your territory a bit.
So, you have people who are certain that a man in a robe transforms a cracker into the literal body of Jesus saying that what goes on in Scientology is crazy? Let’s realize this: What matters is not who says who’s crazy, what matters is we live in a free country. You can believe whatever you want, otherwise it’s not a free country—it’s something else. If we start controlling what people think and why they think it, we have case studies where that became the norm. I don’t care what the tenets are of Scientology. They don’t distract me. I don’t judge them, and I don’t criticize them.
Now, where the rubber hits the road is, since we are a free country where belief systems are constitutionally protected—provided they don’t infringe on the rights of others—then how do you have governance over “all” when you have belief systems for the “some”? It seems to me that the way you govern people is you base governance on things that are objectively true; that are true regardless of your belief system, or no matter what the tenets are of your holy documents. And then they should base it on objective truths that apply to everyone. So the issue comes about not that there are religious people in the world that have one view over another, it’s if you have one view or another based on faith and you want to legislate that in a way that affects everyone. That’s no longer a free democracy. That’s a country where the few who have a belief system that’s not based in objective reality want to control the behavior of everyone else.
The documentary essentially argues that Scientology shouldn’t be granted tax-exempt status as a religion.
But why aren’t they a religion? What is it that makes them a religion and others are religions? If you attend a Seder, there’s an empty chair sitting right there and the door is unlocked because Elijah might walk in. OK. These are educated people who do this. Now, some will say it’s ritual, some will say it could literally happen. But religions, if you analyze them, who is to say that one religion is rational and another isn’t? It looks like the older those thoughts have been around, the likelier it is to be declared a religion. If you’ve been around 1,000 years you’re a religion, and if you’ve been around 100 years, you’re a cult. That’s how people want to divide the kingdom. Religions have edited themselves over the years to fit the times, so I’m not going to sit here and say Scientology is an illegitimate religion and other religions are legitimate religions. They’re all based on belief systems. Look at Mormonism! There are ideas that are as space-exotic within Mormonism as there are within Scientology, and it’s more accepted because it’s a little older than Scientology is, so are we just more accepting of something that’s older?
The line I’m drawing is that there are religions and belief systems, and objective truths. And if we’re going to govern a country, we need to base that governance on objective truths—not your personal belief system.
Tyson sums up my view quite well. Each to their own, but keep it to yourself and keep your damn hands off the government.
Polly and I regularly watch Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO. Real Time, along with John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight and Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, highlight the important news stories of the week, giving them a comedic twist. Sometimes, when these shows focus on American religion, especially Evangelical Christianity, I am often irritated when they play loose with the facts. Bill Maher, by far, is the worst.
Maher loves to bash creationists. I am all for him doing so, but I wish he would not distort their beliefs when he does. As an atheist and a critic of religion, Maher has the responsibility to speak accurately when critiquing, attacking, or ridiculing creationist beliefs. Look, they make it easy for us, so the least we can do is represent their beliefs accurately.
Over the years, I’ve heard Bill Maher repeatedly say creationists believe the earth is 5,000 years old. I know of NO creationist who believes this. None. Nor do I know any who think the earth is 10,000 years old. Adding another zero doesn’t make their belief any more rational or scientifically correct. Creationists are literalists. They believe the book of Genesis is a science and history textbook. When the Bible talks about Adam living 930 years, Noah living 950 years, Abraham living 175 years, David living 70 years, and Jesus living 33 years, creationists believe these ages are factual. They also believe the genealogies found in the Bible are factual. This is why James Ussher, a 17th century Church of Ireland archbishop, was able to add up the ages and genealogies and conclude that the God created the universe on October 22, 4004 BC.
The chronology is sometimes called the Ussher-Lightfoot chronology because John Lightfoot published a similar chronology in 1642–1644. This, however, is a misnomer, as the chronology is based on Ussher’s work alone and not that of Lightfoot. Ussher deduced that the first day of creation began at nightfall on Saturday, October 22, 4004 BC, in the proleptic Julian calendar, near the autumnal equinox. He elsewhere dates the time to 6 pm. Lightfoot similarly deduced that Creation began at nightfall near the autumnal equinox, but in the year 3929 BC.
Ussher’s proposed date of 4004 BC differed little from other Biblically based estimates, such as those of Jose ben Halafta (3761 BC), Bede (3952 BC), Ussher’s near-contemporary Scaliger (3949 BC), Johannes Kepler (3992 BC) or Sir Isaac Newton (c. 4000 BC). Ussher’s specific choice of starting year may have been influenced by the then-widely-held belief that the Earth’s potential duration was 6,000 years (4,000 before the birth of Christ and 2,000 after), corresponding to the six days of Creation, on the grounds that “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Peter 3:8). This view continued to be held as recently as AD 2000,six thousand years after 4004 BC.
The universe then, according to creationists, is 6,019 years old not 5,000 years old. I sent Maher an email and a tweet about his inaccurate date. He did not respond.
Here’s why this matters. We who think the universe is 14 billions years old often criticize creationists for playing loose with the facts. I know, the difference between 6,019 and 5,000 is just 1,019 years, but we should do our best to accurately represent our enemy. If atheists and scientists are going to do battle with creationists, then the least they can do is know what their enemy believes, Far too often, atheists say things about Evangelical beliefs that are not true. They read a meme or see something on Facebook or Twitter and they assume that what they read is correct. We make ourselves look bad when we misstate our opponents beliefs.
When Women Have Abortions, 2010 Guttmacher Institute
Here are the FACTS about abortion:
Very few abortions occur at late or full term. 89% of all abortions occur in the first trimester, with 63% occurring in the first nine weeks. 98.8% of abortions take place before viability. Late term abortions after twenty week are 1.2% of all abortion procedures performed in the United States. Out of 1.2 million annual abortions, 14,400 are after 20 weeks. Most of these abortion are medically necessary due to the health of the mother, the fetus, or both.
I realize that almost half of Americans are pro-life, or at least when polled they say they are pro-life. I am not at all convinced that as many people are pro-life as the polls suggest.
I wonder how pro-lifers would respond to polling questions like these:
Your eleven year old daughter is raped by a serial rapist and she became pregnant. Would you support your daughter having an abortion?
Your wife is raped by an AID’s infected man. Her rape was a Todd Akin “legitimate” rape and she became pregnant. Would you support your wife having an abortion?
Your wife is pregnant with a fetus that tests show will be born without a brain. Would you support your wife having an abortion?
Your wife is in danger of dying if her fetus is carried to term. The doctor says unless she has an abortion she will die. Would you support your wife having an abortion?
Your wife is carrying a dead fetus. Should she have an abortion to remove the fetus? Why? Perhaps almighty God will work a miracle and breathe the breath of life back into the fetus. Shouldn’t you wife wait to see if God works a miracle?
When faced with reality and not political talking points I wonder how many people would actually stand by their no-exceptions anti-abortion stance?
Some pro-lifers say they support exemptions for rape, incest, and if the life of the mother is at stake. However, these exceptions are antithetical to the pro-life view. If life begins the moment the egg and sperm unite, then any abortion is the killing of a human life. It is inconsistent and hypocritical to call yourself pro-life and then turn right around and say, in some circumstances, it is permissible to kill the fetus. Shouldn’t this life and death choice be left in the hands of God?
According to anti-abortionists, life begins at conception. At the very moment the sperm and egg unite a new life is created. Anti-abortionists are intractable when it comes to their position. Life begins at conception…end of debate.
Let me tell you a story……
This story takes place at the We Make Life Possible Fertility Clinic.
Sue gave birth to a beautiful baby girl through in vitro fertilization. Her baby girl is 1 month old . Sue stopped by the Fertility Clinic to show off her newborn to the Clinic staff.
While Sue was at the clinic, a huge explosion rocked the place and the clinic was engulfed in flames. Later speculation on World Net Daily, suggested a supporter of Barack Obama was behind the attack.
John, named after John THE Baptist, a pro-life activist, happened to be passing by the clinic when the explosion took place. John went running into the clinic hoping to perhaps save someone from the fire.
John had been to the We Make Possible Life Fertility Clinic before. His wife Patience had problems conceiving, and not wanting to wait on God to open her womb, John and Patience went to Clinic. While the treatment was successful, Patience miscarried a few months into the pregnancy.
John knew the Clinic stored hundreds of fertilized eggs (embryos) in a freezer. As he rushed into the Clinic, John saw Sue huddled in a corner with her newborn daughter trying to get away from the fire. John thought “Surely I should save these two.”
John thought for a moment, asking himself What Would Jesus Do? Suddenly, he realized the fire was going to destroy all the frozen embryos. John told Sue and her baby Sorry, maybe Jesus will come rescue you, and he rushed to the freezer where the frozen embryos were stored. Through John’s heroic effort, hundreds of frozen embryos were saved. Sadly, Sue and her newborn daughter were burnt to death.
Who among us would fault John? After all, he acted according to the greater good. Who wouldn’t save 200 lives at the expense of 2 lives?
The above story follows the logic of the life begins at conception viewpoint to its illogical conclusion. There is no difference between 200 embryos and Sue and her baby. Life is life. It makes perfect sense for John to save the frozen embryos and not Sue and her little one. Surely John would be praised for saving the 200 embryos, right? If the clinic is unable to reopen, perhaps the frozen embryos can be put up for adoption. After all EVERY embryo is a life.
If life begins at conception and terminating a pregnancy is the murder of a baby as pro-life zealots claim, then the following conclusions can be made:
The woman who has the abortion is a murderer
The doctor who performs the abortion is a murderer
The nurse who helps with the abortion is a murderer
The receptionist who books the abortion appointment is a murderer
The person who took the woman to the clinic is a murderer
If these conclusions are true, then it means that none of these people will go to heaven when they die. Why? The BIble says:
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. Revelation 21:8
It is also fair to conclude that people who kill innocent men, women, and children in war are murderers too. Where are the same pro-life zealots proclaiming the evil of war? It seems that killing a zygote is murder, but killing an Afghan child or mother is not. It seems that the only life pro-lifers protect is that which has not yet been born. Why is this?
I have come to the conclusion that pro-lifers who do not condemn war are guilty of facilitating murder.(use their logic and exegesis) Pro-lifers charge those who believe abortion should be rare, safe, and legal with facilitating murder. Pro-lifers make it quite clear that those who promote and facilitate abortion cannot be a Christian. How can they be since they are facilitating murder? I ask then, what about pro-lifers who promote and facilitate war. How can they be Christian and support the murder of innocent men, women,children, and the unborn? It seems to me that heaven is going to be quite empty if murderers are barred from entering. If you still doubt that no murderers will enter heaven:
Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. Revelation 22:14,15
And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Matthew 19:17-19
In about 17 months there will be a Presidential election. Republicans know they have a fight on their hands. They need to make sure that the faithful turn out in record numbers and vote for the Republican candidate. They need to appeal to the value voters, those who hold to right-wing political and social beliefs.
One of the key issues that will make it to the ballot in 2012 is whether or not a fertilized egg is a person. Personhood USA is circulating petitions in all 50 states hoping to get politicians to enact personhood laws. According to Rachel Maddow, there are already eight states debating personhood legislation and with 2012 being a Presidential election year it is quite likely that there will be a concerted effort to get personhood initiatives on the ballot.
One of the implications of Personhood laws is that they could make the use of birth control pills illegal. (since birth control pills are an abortifacient and can, and do cause spontaneous abortion) 46 years ago in Griswold v. Connecticut the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the right of privacy extended to the use of contraceptives and states could not ban the sale of contraceptives. (it is hard to believe there was a time when selling birth control was illegal)
Personhood laws could upend not only Roe v. Wade but Griswold v. Connecticut. If a fertilized egg is a person, then any deliberate effort to kill the fertilized egg would be considered murder. A quick perusal of The Pill Kills website will make it clear that the personhood crowd is dead serious about banning abortion and birth control.
What is the implications of a personhood law?
All abortion would be illegal, including abortion in the case of rape and incest
Abortion to save the life of the mother would be outlawed since it is illegal to murder one person to save another
Using any form of birth control that is an abortifacient would be illegal
Our entire legal code would need rewriting to reflect that a fertilized egg is a person
A person causing a woman to miscarry could be charged with murder.
Parents would be able to claim the fertilized egg as a dependent on their income tax return
Fertilized eggs would be eligible for adoption
Stem cell research would be curtailed and possibly banned
I can imagine a new Evangelical evangelism outreach to fertilized eggs. “Winning People to Jesus, One Fertilized Egg at a Time.”
We must not sit on the sidelines while right-wing Christians attempt to push their social agenda down the throat of the American people. We must consistently and continually point out that personhood laws are fraught with legal implications that will turn the legal code into a mine field.
Right-wing Christians are not going away. Obama being elected President was a wake up call and they have no intentions of sitting idly by and letting liberal, fertilized egg killing Democrats win in 2012. I expect a vicious fight, not only on the federal level, but the state and local level too.
Look at the graphic below. Is what you see a baby? Is aborting this the same as murdering your mother, father, or grandmother?
Three Day Old Human Embryo.
Only those blinded by their religious ideology can conclude that this is a picture of a baby. At best, it is potential life, but not life itself.
Now let me get personal for a moment.
If you believe people who support a woman’s right to an abortion are murderers or evil people, then why do you have anything to do with me? If this is your view, why would you want to associate with a neighbor, friend, husband, father, father-in-law, or grandfather who advocates m-u-r-d-e-r? IF I am a murderer because I support the slaughter (your word) of over a million babies a year, then aren’t I just as evil as Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy?
And herein lies the problem with your shrill rhetoric. I am a kind, decent, loving neighbor, friend, husband, father, father-in-law and grandfather. Yes, I am an atheist but I am more “Christian” than many of the Christians you know.
How about asking me WHY I support a woman’s right to an abortion? If asked, you would find out that:
I don’t think human life begins at conception. Potential life, yes, but human life? No. Science tells me that this is true, not a pre-science, antiquated religious text.
When I look at the embryo above I don’t see a “baby.” It is a group of cells, not a baby.
I support a woman’s right to use birth control to keep from getting pregnant. I know that some forms of birth control might cause a spontaneous abortion, but I have no problem with this since I don’t think life begins at conception.
Since 89% of abortions occur in the first trimester, long before viability, I fully support a woman’s unfettered right to an abortion. This right includes over the counter access to morning after drugs.
I do not support abortion on demand after viability. However, only 14,400 a year occur after viability, and, in most cases, these abortions are medically necessary due to the health of the mother, the fetus, or both.
I am an atheist. I don’t believe in God and I don’t believe the teachings of the Bible. My beliefs are not governed by the Bible or the teachings of a sect. When I came to the view I now hold on abortion it was because of the science behind the abortion debate.
I am also a husband, father, father-in-law, and a grandfather. If ANY of the women in my family were raped or were carrying a fetus that could cost them their life, I would want them to have access to every medical and psychological means necessary to help them. I am most concerned for the LIVING.
I didn’t come to this position easily. I have a daughter with Down Syndrome. I know many women have an abortion when they find out they are carrying a fetus with Down’s. I can’t imagine our life without Bethany. My brother was born three months premature, not too many weeks past the viability line. I can’t imagine life without my little brother. My point is this: everything doesn’t fit neatly in a pro-life or pro-choice box. Life is messy and we are often forced to make hard decisions.
This post is an attempt to get people to see that it is simplistic and offensive when people label someone like me a murderer or evil. But, I don’t do that, you might say. Are you sure you don’t? Every time you post to your blog, Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest that people who support abortion are murderers or evil, you ARE saying I am a murderer or evil. This is the inescapable conclusion of your rhetoric and moralizing.
Just substitute abortion for climate change. This is how I often feel when trying to talk with someone who confuses their beliefs for facts.
I have come to the conclusion that there is no common ground to be had with people who are pro-life. They start with religion and not science, and I see no way of finding common ground. All I can do is present the facts about abortion and work to keep them from causing any further harm to women.
I understand the pro-life view, I really do. I was pro-life for most of my adult life. I fully understand the why’s of being pro-life. I know all the proof-texts and I think the Bible supports the pro-life view, along with the pro-slavery, pro-polygamy, pro-incest, pro-genocide, pro-war, pro-peace view.
I understand where you are coming from. Now it is time for you to give me the same courtesy.
Ken Ham, CEO of Answers in Genesis and the Creationism Museum and a defender of young earth creationism, stated in a recent radio interview that the state of Kentucky is treating him like a second class citizen. According to Ham, by refusing to give him $18 million worth of tax incentives for his latest project, the Ark Encounter theme park, state officials are attacking his right to speak and worship freely.
Ham’s legal battle with the state of Kentucky over tax incentives is just the latest in a long string of controversies swirling around Ham’s creationism empire. Ham has spent most of his life being “persecuted” by scientists, secularists, humanists, atheists, liberal Christians…well by anyone who doesn’t think and believe just like he does. Ham gins up controversy so those who support him will be “righteously angry” and continue to support his moneymaking enterprises.
Last Monday, Ham was a guest on Janet Parshall’s radio program. (Parshall, a fundamentalist Christian, “is the host of the Christian talk show In the Market with Janet Parshall, which is broadcast on the Moody Radio network.”) During the program, Ham stated:
“If we don’t do something about this it’s like the old idea of the frog in the water that you can boil it up and boil it to death and it doesn’t you’re doing it because it keeps accommodating to the temperature around it. If Christians just keep accommodating and allowing this to happen more and more, we will lose that free exercise of religion.”
I wonder if Ham, Parshall, or those who listened to the program on Moody Radio, know that the boiled frog story is bad science. Probably not. Since creationists jettison any science that doesn’t fit within the framework of a literalist interpretation of the Bible, I guess it would be too much to ask them to research the story before using it as a metaphor for Christian inaction and acclimation to culture.
If you plunge a frog into boiling water, it will immediately jump out. But if you place the frog into cool water and slowly heat it to boiling, the frog won’t notice and will slowly cook to death. So claims the myth. Indeed, everyone—from corporate consultants to politicians to environmental activists—cites the frog fable as proof that people often don’t see change happening and cannot deal with it in the aftermath.
So how did this myth begin? Maybe it arose because frogs are cold-blooded. We humans are warm-blooded: our internal thermometers measure the local temperature, and then we shiver or sweat to maintain a body temperature of around 37 degrees Celsius. But a cold-blooded frog maintains the temperature of its immediate environment. Perhaps somebody once wrongly thought that this meant frogs had an inferior or inadequate thermometer…
…Dr. George R. Zug, curator of reptiles and amphibians at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and Professor Doug Melton of Harvard University both agree on this point.
Second, a frog would notice the water getting hot. Dr. Victor Hutchison, a herpetologist at the University of Oklahoma, has dealt with frogs throughout his professional life. Indeed, one of his current research interests is “the physiological ecology of thermal relations of amphibians and reptiles.” Professor Hutchison states, “The legend is entirely incorrect! The ‘critical thermal maxima’ [the maximum temperature an animal can bear] of many species of frogs have been determined by several investigators. In this procedure, the water in which a frog is submerged is heated gradually at about 2 degrees Fahrenheit per minute. As the temperature of the water is gradually increased, the frog will eventually become more and more active in attempts to escape the heated water.”
So real-life experiments show that the frog-in-boiling-water story is wrong. If only this fact could make it into real life, too.
After doing some reading on the boiled frog myth, I found a study that best describes Ham’s use of the myth:
As part of advancing science, several experiments observing the reaction of frogs to slowly heated water took place in the 19th century. In 1869, while doing experiments searching for the location of the soul, German physiologist Friedrich Goltz demonstrated that a frog that has had its brain removed will remain in slowly heated water, but an intact frog attempted to escape the water when it reached 25 °C.
Hey, I’ve come up with a new metaphor for creationism.
Any day now, I expect Ham to come out with an Answers in Genesis defense of the boiled frog story. Like the voice of God speaking to Moses on the Mount, the utterances of Ken Ham are treated as infallible by his cult followers. Ken Ham, like the Bible and God, is never, ever wrong.
The easiest way for Ham to prove the boiled frog story is to conduct a frog boiling study. Oh wait, Ham doesn’t do research. He’s too busy preaching the Gospel of Genesis 1-3, also known as The Bible According to Hammy®, to take any time to conduct a study. With millions of dollars at stake, there is no time for bothering to speak scientifically when pretending to be a scientist on the radio. Souls are at stake. The future of America and Western Civilization depends on the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter. If these beacons of ignorance are closed, what would Christian schools and homeschoolers do for science class field trips?
Perhaps one of Ham’s followers might say, yes, the science of the story is wrong, but the moral story behind the metaphor is correct. Oh, you mean like the B-I-B-L-E? Let the stammering begin…
Note
The boiled frog story has been used by people of every political, social, and religious persuasion. I even know one redheaded preacher who used it years ago in his sermons.
Ohio legislators continue to push bills that will make it hard or impossible for a woman to have and abortion. Currently, the right win Republican driven legislature are discussion no less than four bills that, if passed, will severely limit a woman’s right to abortion or outlaw it altogether.
Using a throw it and see if it sticks approach, Ohio Republicans are doing everything they can to make abortion illegal. One bill makes abortion illegal after 20 weeks. Another bill bans aborting a fetus with Down Syndrome, and yet another adds “a trigger clause to block abortions in Ohio should the U.S. Supreme Court overturn Roe vs. Wade.”
Yesterday, Ohio legislators began debating HB 69, also known as the Heartbeat Bill. Marc Kovac, Capitol reporter for Dix Communications, had this to say about their deliberations (link no longer active):
State lawmakers began deliberations Tuesday on legislation that would ban abortions within weeks of conception.
This is the third session the Heartbeat Bill has been offered. Sponsors told the House’s Community and Family Advancement Community that the proposed law change is needed to address “the human rights issue of our generation.”
“Biology is crystal clear that at the moment of conception, a unique organism comes into existence,” said Rep. Christina Hagan (R-Alliance), who carried the Heartbeat Bill last session and who is a primary co-sponsor again this session. “Since this new life possesses human DNA and is the offspring of human parents, it can only be described as a human life.”
She added, “As far as observable science is concerned,human life begins at conception.”
Hagan and Rep. Ron Hood (R-Ashville) offered testimony and answered questions for a hour and a half Tuesday afternoon during the initial hearing on HB 69, which would “generally prohibit an abortion of an unborn human individual with a detectable heartbeat” and “create the Joint Legislative Committee on Adoption Promotion and Support.” Proponents believe the
legislation could serve as the vehicle to overturn Roe vs. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.
“… It’s been 42 years of abortion on demand which has destroyed the lives of 56 million human beings,” Hood said. “At some point we actually have to do more than regulate how and where we kill children. We actually have to protect them. “The Heartbeat Bill will finally recognize the universal indicator of life —the heartbeat, the human heartbeat of a human life.”
Opponents, however, think the Heartbeat Bill goes too far. Some abortion opponents say the resulting legal challenges could end up undoing other abortion-related restrictions in state law. Others call it an attempt by Statehouse Republicans to further restrict women’s access to health care…
Fetus at 28 days, HB 69 would make aborting this illegal
HB 69 is fifty pages long, filled with legalese meant to obfuscate and confuse, with the desired result being no Ohio doctor will be willing to perform ANY abortion procedure. The bill not only makes abortion illegal after a heartbeat is detected, it also adds layers of reporting and counseling requirements. The goal is simple…NO ABORTIONS.
Fetus at 56 days, 1/2 inch long
Ohio Republicans are hypocrites. The issue isn’t science. No matter how many big words they use in the bill in an attempt to give HB 69 respectability, the real reason for this bill is that its sponsors are Christians who believe God is the giver and taker of life. Their agenda is a religious one, and they will not stop until all abortion procedures are illegal. In their mind, abortion is murder, yet the HB 69 makes no provision for criminalizing the actions of those who are culpable in the death of the fetus. Shouldn’t everyone who played a part in the abortion be charged with murder? (Please read 25 Questions for Those Who Say Abortion is Murder)
These days, I wonder if I went to sleep one night in Ohio and woke up the next day in North Carolina. What happened to the progressive Ohio of my youth? Ohio has become a joke, a state-owned and operated by Jesus H Christ. The Heartbeat bill has failed twice, but I fear it might have a good chance of passing this time.
This is the graphic Isaac Latterell used in 2014 on a blog post about child dismemberment.
Like throwing red meat to a hungry lion, state and federal politicians regularly introduce bills sure to arouse the passion of those opposed to abortion. Recently, South Dakota State Representative Isaac Latterell introduced HB 1230, the Preborn Infant Beheading Ban of 2015 (Link no longer active). The bill states:
FOR AN ACT ENTITLED, An Act to prohibit the beheading of certain living unborn children and to provide penalties therefor.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF SOUTH DAKOTA:
Section 1. No licensed physician may knowingly behead a living unborn child with the intent of endangering the life or health of the child. A violation of this section is a Class 1 felony.
Section 2. For purposes of this Act, behead, means to separate the skull from the spine. The term, behead, may not be construed to include the curettage abortion procedure or the suction aspiration abortion procedure.
Section 3. The provisions of this Act do not apply to any medical treatment for a life-threatening condition provided to the mother by a physician licensed to practice medicine in the state which results in the accidental or unintentional injury or death of the unborn child.
Section 4. This Act shall be known, and may be cited, as the Preborn Infant Beheading Ban.
Recently, Latterell wrote a blog post that stated Plan Parenthood is worse than ISIS: (link no longer active)
Most states including South Dakota allow for the death penalty for murderers. There are certain revolting methods of execution, such as beheading, that no state would ever permit, even against murderers who use this method on their victims. It is this revulsion that leads us to rightly condemn the beheadings committed by unconscionably violent soldiers in the Middle East…
…Planned Parenthood abortionists in Sioux Falls are similarly beheading unborn children during dismemberment abortions. This method has been described by the Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Carhart as a procedure that is: “laden with the power to devalue human life,” and is as brutal, if not more so, than Intact Dilation and Extraction (D&X or partial birth) abortions.”
Most people are unaware that this is happening, because Planned Parenthood of Sioux Falls denies that they behead or otherwise dismember unborn children…
…But South Dakota’s Department of Health’s website shows at least 7 such extreme and dangerous abortions have been done since 2008. There are probably many more where the method used was unstated or stated incorrectly. Considering Planned Parenthood is the only clinic that does abortions, it is clear that they are lying either to the media or to the department of health.
I am beyond angry at what Planned Parenthood is doing to us and to our children. In the words of David Brooks, their actions and their lies “show contempt for us and our morality”, “deny the slightest acknowledgment of our common humanity”, and “take the bully’s maximum relish in their power over the weak and innocent”.
This is why I have introduced House Bill 1230, the Preborn Infant Beheading Ban of 2015. It passed the House Health and Human Services Committee today with a vote of 11-2.
It simply states: “No licensed physician may knowingly behead a living unborn child with the intent of endangering the life or health of the child.”No state, no religion, and no organization should ever be allowed to use this unspeakably horrifying method. While we rightly take the speck out of our neighbor’s eye by holding ISIS accountable, let us be sure to take the plank out of our own eye by holding Planned Parenthood accountable.
There were 601 abortions performed in South Dakota in 2013. 73% of the women having an abortion were 29 years old and younger, 16% were ages 30-34, and 11% were 35 and older. Of the 601 women who had an abortion in 2013, 545 of them paid for the abortion out-of-pocket. Only 56 abortions were covered by some sort of insurance.
Some 99.8% of the abortions performed in 2013 in South Dakota would NOT be subject to Latterell’s HB 1230. That’s right, for all the noise he is making about ISIS and Planned Parenthood of South Dakota beheading babies, his bill would cover .2% of the abortions in 2013. How many abortions is .2%? Two. That’s right, two. (I rounded up to the next whole abortion)
I suspect that the seven ISIS-like abortions since 2008 Latterell mentions in his blog post were determined by a physician to be medically necessary. If they were, then these abortions would fall outside of the prohibitions in HB 1230. The bill states:
The provisions of this Act do not apply to any medical treatment for a life-threatening condition provided to the mother by a physician licensed to practice medicine in the state which results in the accidental or unintentional injury or death of the unborn child.
Latterell would likely argue that if his bill saves the life of one, just one baby, then it’s worth it. OK, let’s run with this logic. In 2013, over 500 times more South Dakota residents died from alcohol and smoking than from the abortion procedures outlawed by HB 1230. If Lattrell is serious about saving lives, then he should introduce the Alcohol and Tobacco Ban of 2015.
Lattrell’s bill is nothing more than political smoke and mirrors meant to convince pro-lifers that he is doing something about the evil abortion plague in South Dakota. Elizabeth Nash with the Guttmacher Institute summed up HB 1230 this way:
“What this bill is really about is the inflammatory language and riling up people to be opposed to abortion. This language is pretty gruesome. It’s inflammatory. It’s designed to get the political juices flowing. It is not really about what medical practice is like.”
The end game for people like Isaac Lattrell is the banning of ALL abortion procedures and some forms of birth control. The pro-life movement, realizing that they cannot overturn Roe v, Wade with a frontal attack, use incremental attacks meant to make it harder for a woman to get an abortion. Like the Koch brothers, the pro-life movement has become quite skilled at surreptitiously advancing their agenda with legislation like HB 1230. This is why those of us who support a woman’s right to choose must push back EVERY time someone such as Isaac Lattrell attempts to push his religiously driven anti-woman agenda on American women.
No, he didn’t write a post about my vast knowledge of science. That would have taken all of eight words: not much, but more than I knew yesterday. In the post, Why I Stopped Believing, I mentioned five of the books that played an instrumental part in my deconversion. Coyne’s book, Why Evolution is True, was one of the books I mentioned. The book was quite helpful when I was trying to hang on to some sort of God who created. One chapter in particular, Remnants: Vestiges, Embryos, and Bad Design, had a profound effect on how I viewed the natural world.
I’ve always said that the definition of “success” in mentoring graduate students is “producing a student who can replace you.” And though I’ve had very few students, I’ve replaced myself in that sense at least three times, so I’m quite happy.
And I consider the definition of “success” as an anti-theist to be “turning at least one person away from the delusions of faith and towards the virtues of reason.” After all, if theists can boast about bringing people to Jesus, why can’t atheists take pride in helping people go in the reverse direction?
Now I can’t claim full credit for doing that to any one person, but I claim partial credit for helping quite a few—or so they tell me. And I’ll add those partial successes up to assert that N > 1.
The latest partial convert is Bruce Gerencser [sic], a former Christian minister, who explains on his website what led to his leaving the church. As is nearly always true for the deconversion of ministers (or anyone else, for that matter), it is a long, tortuous, and complex process involving many inputs…
…But read Gerenser’s [sic] whole piece (it’s short), because he traces the roots of his apostasy back to the very virtues instilled in him by his religious parents, including a love of reading and having the courage of one’s convictions.
The other point this makes is that it’s better, if you want to advance reason, to write and publish (if you have that privilege) rather than to give lectures and have debates. That is because in the quietude of authorship, you can polish and fully express your views, and people can read them at leisure and compare them with contrary views. In a public talk, I often find that the audience comprises people who are already on my side, and have come out of curiosity or to seek affirmation. Those are both fine reasons, and, after all, we all need affirmation (except perhaps Christopher Hitchens!), but in truth I’d prefer a higher titer of opponents when I speak. But again, I prefer to write, and that’s why I wrote The Albatross (soon to be available in fine bookstores everywhere)…
Coyne has a new book coming out in May, Faith vs. Fact: Why Science and Religion are Incompatible. You can pre order the book here. (I receive a few shekels if your order the book through this link)
